Liberation Film Series presents Brother Minister: The Assassination of Malcolm X

DETROIT - May 14, 2014 - PRLog -- The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History’s Liberation Film Series presents a free screening of Brother Minister: The Assassination of Malcolm X. This free event takes place on May 17, 2014, from 2 to 6 p.m. at the museum, located at 315 East Warren Avenue in Detroit. Following the film will be a discussion focusing on “The Continuing Relevance of Malcolm X for Black Liberation,” led by Dr. Baba Zak Kondo of Baltimore City Community College and Dr. Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua of University of Illinois-Urbana.

Dr. Kondo states, "Like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm's labor and consciousness helped change how African peoples in the U.S. and elsewhere represent our interests, seek self-determination, and see ourselves.”

Dr. Cha-Jua illuminates, “What made Malcolm arguably the most important African American leader of the 20th century was his incisive and accessible analysis of the domestic and international situation of African descendant people. Those are qualities, intellectual skills that develop over time. In all likelihood, if Malcolm had lived into his seventies, he would have provided a trenchant critique of this historical period, the era of global racialized financial capitalism and the new U.S. imperialism and offered a sound strategy of resistance.”

The film screening is part of a larger celebration of the revolutionary life and legacy of Malcolm X. The Black Zapruder Film: They Killed Malcolm X (directed by Karl Evanzz, author of The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X) will open on Friday, May 16, 2014 in the museum’s lower Coleman A. Young Gallery. The video depicts three of Malcolm’s assassins outside the Audubon Ballroom during the aftermath of his assassination on February 21, 1965. The Black Zapruder Film will be augmented by enlarged high-resolution photos of the film strips with accompanying didactic notes.This exhibition will also showcase a sample of Malcolm’s early writings from the museum’s Malcolm X Papers Collection, feature the museum’s archived sculptured bust of Malcolm X, and include photos of Malcolm’s life. This gallery exhibition will also be open Saturday, May 17 and Tuesday, May 20; the museum will be closed May 19, the 89^th anniversary of Malcolm’s birth.

The May 17 program will open with African Drumming by Marwan Amen-Ra and Chinelo Amen-Ra. African ancestral libations by Jamal Jordan, poetry readings by Dr. Nubia Kai, former Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at Howard University, and Ian Price, a student at University Prep Science and Math High School, will precede the film.

About the Films
Brother Minister reveals the mystery surrounding the assassination of Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City on February 21, 1965. It probes the innocence of two of the convicted assassins, reveals the true identity of the killers, examines the FBI’s and NYPD’s clandestine roles in the assassination, and discovers the secret origin of the Nation of Islam and its political and religious legacy in America.

Video cameras accomplished a feat 49 years ago that the New York Police Department and the FBI never have: they captured all three men who assassinated Malcolm X on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Researcher Karl Evanzz and filmmaker Omar Shabazz have compiled over 300 clear frames from news footage taken on that fateful day to create The Black Zapruder Film: They Killed Malcolm X, whose title references the famed "Zapruder film" of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Combined with other concrete and circumstantial facts of the case and suspected assassins, The Black Zapruder Film presents a compelling picture of the truth behind the murder of a human rights leader.

About the Liberation Film Series

The Liberation Film Series is supported by the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Dr. Errol Henderson (Pennsylvania State University)and the Black/African Studies Departments of Michigan State University, University of Michigan- Dearborn, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Wayne State University, Eastern Michigan University,Wayne County Community College District, Oakland University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, National Council of Black Studies, Media Education Foundation, Walter P. Reuther Library - Wayne State University, Wayne State University Press,Bentley Historical Library - University of Michigan,University Prep Science and Math High School, Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association, Fashion International, Black & White Look Optical Corporation, Nandi’s Book Store, The African History Network Show, community activists, and individual contributors.The 2013 - 2014 season of the Liberation Film Series runs through June 2014, and is free and open to the public. For more information, including the complete series schedule and respective speaker profiles, discussion topics, trailers, reading lists, supplemental educational links, and insightful statements of endorsement, please visit www.TheWright.org/liberation.

About the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
Founded in 1965 and located at 315 East Warren Avenue in Midtown Detroit’s Cultural Center, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is the world's largest institution dedicated to the African American experience. For more information, please visit www.TheWright.org or call (313) 494-5800.